Tech Vs. Tradition: Both Are Winners

PALM BEACH, Fla. - To get a sense of the technology divide within the independent advisor channel, all you had to do was bear witness to Halverson vs. Eubanks slug it out on the dais during Tuesday’s breakout session at the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) annual conference.

On one side was financial advisor Justin Halverson of Great Waters Financial, an independent advisory with corporate headquarters in Minneapolis.

His office is built with the latest technologies: video conferencing, all-digital capabilities, iPads visible at every turn, an energy-efficient office environment that would make the hardiest Minnesotan soul proud.

On the other side was Millicent P. Eubanks, vice president-investment officer of Wells Fargo Advisors in McLean, Va.

Wells Fargo Advisors, the financial advisor arm of the wirehouse, represents the more traditionalist arm of the advisory office: plenty of paper, long-established processes, an advisory model that has withstood the test of time with corporate resources stretching from coast to coast.

Both Emerge Winners

At the end of the day, both Eubanks and Halverson can be declared “winners.”

As long as either advisor stuck to their mission of serving clients, “They are both right,” said Kevin Kennedy, managing director and head of individual annuity for AXA Distributors in New York.

Kennedy moderated the session titled “Innovative Solutions to the Retirement Income Challenge.” The session covered some of the technological disruption changing the face of the retirement income industry.

A third panelist showed how traditional financial advisors are being led into the digital age by their tech-savvy peers.

Independent financial advisor Don L. Moore, owner of Chesapeake Financial Strategies in Greenbelt, Md., joined the business in the mid-1970s and was steeped in  paper-based ways of doing business.

But his son Don Moore II, who joined the firm in 2015, was born of a different age. He loves his mobile tools and 24/7 internet connection as much as the next 40-something advisor.

Don the younger, who has been pegged to succeed his father one day, is helping Don the elder skipper Chesapeake Financial safely into the digital horizon.

Moving from Static to Dynamic

Soon it will hardly make a difference whether clients face their advisor on a screen or in person, Kennedy said. Retail technology in the form of web-based tools will turn static illustration models into a dynamic and interactive experience.

That’s a good thing, because advisors seem to be moving to a middle ground in which tried-and-true techniques of sitting down with clients and looking them in the eye are merging with the modern tools that excel at capturing and illustrating data in compelling ways.

Industry pundits argue whether advisors will find themselves replaced or displaced by technology, but that’s beside the point.

What matters is the advisor-client engagement.

“It’s more of a conversation,” Kennedy said.

Clients are more engaged when they or their advisors drag their fingers over an iPad and watch income scenarios change before their very eyes. Do that and the annuity transparency quotient rises by a 10X factor, Kennedy said.

Web-based illustration scenarios for AXA’s tax-deferred annuity Structured Capital Strategies are light years ahead of where they were three or four years ago, Kennedy said. Early technology adopters in retirement income are putting these new tools to work.

Drop-down menus and choices that illustrate annuity wealth accumulation and income distribution hypotheticals allow advisors to communicate quantitative changes in ways they’ve never been able to before, panelists said.

 

 

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at [email protected].
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